


Constants and Variables

by hellkitty



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 15:52:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16558688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: SPOILERS for LL25, obviously.





	Constants and Variables

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ravynfyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravynfyre/gifts).



  
It was an awkward time, but when had things ever not been awkward between them? And it hurt, because how could it not? But Perceptor knew--had learned--that some things were larger than your own pain. Most things, really, especially the things that didn’t feel that way.

“It’s good to see so many mechs come out,” he said, holding his vial of innermost energon, an offering and a talisman. It felt, suddenly, like the wrong thing to say. It always did. It always would. Some things, at least, are relentlessly consistent.

Drift nodded, and Perceptor could see the paint beneath the other mech’s blue optics smeared and chipped, weathered by grief.

“He saved so many of us,” Perceptor added, feeling like he was already flailing, unable to get lift over the gulf of what had been between them.

“Even when he was dying,” Drift said, his voice soft. “On Delphi, even then.”

It was Perceptor’s turn to nod, in silence. There was nothing to say for a beat, just feeling again, and again, all the history, everything they had been through. And then, in a small voice, so small the wind could have stolen it, he murmured, “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” The blue optics glistened in the half-light.

“Everything.” The word escaped Perceptor before he could contain it. “That you didn’t have more time together.That everything’s over. That I stayed with the Lost Light. That I wasn’t enough.” His voice cracked on the last one, heavy with the weight of truth. His hand squeezed the vial so hard he could feel pain.

Drift turned, finally, away from the plinth, and Perceptor got the full force of those optics, day sky blue. “The first wasn’t your fault. And the rest...you were always enough, Perceptor.”

Perceptor shook his head. “I wasn’t, not even to myself. It’s why I kept changing myself. Trying to find someone I liked.”

One corner of Drift’s mouth flickered, like a wind blown flame. “We’re like flowers, Perceptor. We have to stay still in order to grow. Believe me. I spent so long running away from myself, ashamed of who I had been. But it’s like a shadow. You can run, but you’ll never outrun it.”

“Shadows never go away, though,” Perceptor said. Part of him loved this, the memory of moments like this, where Drift would talk about things that hurt the reach of Perceptor’s brain. Science, he could grasp with both hands. It was this half-poetry half-philsophy that stretched him.

“No, they don’t,” Drift’s optics flicked back to the memorial holo, Ratchet, even now, commanding space. “But they give things depth.” He cycled a sigh. “We both made choices we have to live with. But living--that's the important thing. Living now, not in the past.”

“It’s not going to be easy. For any of us.” Even now, mourners were starting to scatter, going their ways with steps that seemed to lack the elastic purpose of before. Going back to small lives, safe and peaceful. He wondered if he was the only one who felt so conflicted about it.

“We adapt. It’s what we do.” A smile, less formal and polite than before. “You must be in demand, at least. The Luna fields, energon processing: there’s plenty of work for a scientist.”

Perceptor shrugged, feeling ungrateful. “Not the science I’m good at. But good enough. It’s a life, but, well. Before, we had purpose. We all had purpose. One we could understand. But peace? How do we do that?”

“It’s going to take some brave mechs to learn.”

Perceptor gave a soft grunt, the sound of agreeing, but not liking. He’d thought peace would be what it was, but he’d learned that the past wasn't as golden glow as he remembered.

Drift sighed. “I hope it worked, for all of us. To think that somewhere, he’s still alive, and we’re all together and happy…” His voice trailed off, wistful, turning back to the holosculpture. The lines of his profile were achingly familiar to Perceptor--only the deco was different, the red whorls and ornate engravings he’d added over the last years.

The idea hurt and healed at the same time: to continue a life with purpose, to have a chance to redeem himself. And to see Drift, happy, even with someone else, every day. “Who is to say that all the happiness is there?” He felt shaky, stepping into territory where the ice was thin under foot. “And there is none for us, here?”

“It’s hard to feel any right now,” the other mech conceded, the mourning cloak seeming to weigh him down, drag him down like a bird’s clipped wings.

“I didn’t mean to suggest--” he cut himself off. He hadn’t meant to suggest anything, but he was lying to himself if he said there wasn’t part of him, like an alternate strain, had been thinking it.

“I know,” Drift said, looking tired, and patient. “I know.” The words felt like rain, like tears on hard ground.

Drift turned, abruptly, and Perceptor found himself pulled into an embrace, the shorter mech’s arms tight around his upper arms, face buried in his throat. The heavy hem of the mourning cloak swept around his ankles, pulling him in, and he returned the hug, after a pause, trying to hold in the sigh, the sound of a lost bliss.

“Thank you,” Drift murmured. “For understanding. You don’t have to. I left you. I hurt you.”

“In the past,” Perceptor demurred. In the past, in that long shadow that stretched behind them both. It didn’t matter. It hadn’t mattered for years. It would never matter again.

Drift pulled away, gently, just enough to create an electric space between them. “I need time to grieve. To refind myself.”

Perceptor nodded, only half-understanding. “I want to help.”

“You are helping. Right now, even.” Another flicker of the mouth, a flame failing to catch. But trying, at least. “But life has taught me that nothing lasts forever. Good.or bad.”

The blessing and curse of existence: you could no more easily hold onto happiness as dwell in grief forever. Holding on too tightly only strangled them at the roots. “I will always be your friend,” he said, in defiance of that. Because some things didn’t change, like laws of gravity, the speed of light. There were constants, even in an ever changing world. He could be one of them.

“And I will be worthy of your friendship,” Drift said, and he stepped back from the embrace, squeezing Perceptor’s hand.

He returned the squeeze.  The vial of innermost energon seemed to throb in his other hand, and he could feel Ratchet's presence over both of them.  Ratchet had been Drift's great love, the one to whom he could give everything he was.  Perceptor knew he could never be that to Drift, to anyone.  He could be a big ove, but he could be a small, steady one.  And that--and he--would be enough.  

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, if we're allowed two great world's now to write fic in, anything can happen. Including one of my favorite ships.


End file.
